Some time later...
“So what do you think we're going to find?” one of the salvage crew asked the other. The speaker was a small spindly creature, spider-like at a glance but with an odd flexibility not seen in Earth arachnids.
Accompanying him was the muscle of the crew, a hulking life form whose people grew up on a dense high-gravity moon, and as a result was able to shoulder a ridiculous amount of weight before she showed signs of slowing or tiring.
“I'm not sure either,” she rumbled, ducking low to fit into the passageway. It was certainly not a comfortably-spacious ship for her species, but she found that few craft were typically suited to creatures of her size. However, her typically dour mood brightened as she lifted her ponderous head, breathing in great gulps of the stale, recycled air, and murmuring “Something smells like food.”
“What, like cooking?” the smaller one asked, hopping up to perch on the front of her snout.
She snorted at the ticklish sensation, and made it click of disagreement. “No, not cooked, but sweet. A carbon ring, short chains, and some unusual enzymes if I'm not mistaken.”
Her companion blinked, then shrugged. “If you say so.” Their species lacked olfactory organs or indeed much of anything to do with chemical ingestion or manipulation, instead relying on a sort of bootleg photosynthesis, sunning themselves and using the efficiently-retained heat to power their needs for hours at a time.
Still, they shivered and made a hiss of annoyance. “It's cold in here; Let's get this over with.” He pulled up a small holo-slate, and a blinking marker appeared in the passageway of the ship's hall.
The lights were dim, the energy conservation mode having been engaged for untold ages given the layer of still dust on everything. Both salvage crew were grateful that they had received a map at all, for often the most dangerous part of the job was finding out that a damaged vessel had a weakened floor or wall that could threaten injury or decompression to the uncautious.
“Remember some of the human delegates had said there was both a rescue and recovery, and that would be paid for both. If we find any obstacles, best to be delicate about removing them.”
His companion just grunted in affirmative, annoyed and self-conscious for feeling like she had done a remarkably-nimble job of avoiding crushing any of the protruding paneling or conduits thus far. She took another breath deep into the sensory pits in her muzzle and snorted, eyes narrowing. “Something's ahead. Doesn't smell like the humans.”
The smaller alien grasped their cutting torch defensively, as if a two-inch plasma flame would be sufficient to protect them from all the dangers his imagination could possibly conjure. Hopping up to follow the blinking path on the holo-slate, the indicator led to a closed door, a red glowing lock indicating that some part of the ship's power was still engaged to keep this closed and secured.
The spindly being reached out to tap on the control panel, but was met with no reaction. He was about to turn back to his companion when he yelped in surprise and pulled his hand back as the console seemed to come alive, a fuzzy layer of swarming and buzzing creatures coating it within moments.
As the small alien took a step back, and then another out of fear and caution, the buzzing took on in a strangely purposeful quality, a pattern slowly emerging as the buzzing repeated, until the smaller alien suddenly recognized it in shock. It was speech, the same tongue as the humans used, but nearly unintelligible as the swarm of tiny crawling and even occasionally flying creatures carefully buzzed in unison. It appeared that they were attempting to say something, although even as the smaller crewmember watched, they could see a few of the creatures drooping and falling from the console, clearly exhausted by the effort.
Finally the buzzing speech became clear enough their translators were able to kick in and parse the words. A weak, echoing and rough voice came through.
”Are you here to help, or hurt?”
Before the spider-like alien could recover from their shock and respond, his companion spoke up, saying “To help, always. Delegates from the federation of human worlds reached out to us about a distress signal they'd received, and the need for both the recovery and a rescue. I take it you are the rescue?”
The voice did not return, but the buzzing seemed to increase in enthusiasm. She chuckled, and pulled forth a large canister that had been slung across her back, unscrewing the threaded seal on one end. After briefly glancing around their surroundings, she poured the contents into a makeshift basin formed from some pieces of scrap material she quickly and carefully bent with her own tentacles into shape.
As she was tapping the last of the liquid from the canister, her companion found his voice again, saying excitedly “The humans told us that this was good food you could use? Seems like simple hydrocarbon rings in some polar solvent, if my companion’s nose here is anything go by, but it's suitable food, no?”
As if in answer, the walls seem to surge and hundreds of thousands of the small buzzing creatures issued forth, some flying but most crawling to the basin. As the two salvage workers watched in amazement, the creatures began methodically consuming the nearly gel-like thick solution. As as one wave of the diminutive creatures finished feeding, they seem to melt away to the side, effortlessly making room for the next, and the aliens could see those that fed appeared notably more energetic, testing wings and taking flights and in some cases even doing little excited circles and loop-de-loops with unexpected playfulness.
After a time, the surge of creatures slowed to a trickle, even as the basin was nearly drained of the sweet syrup. The voice returned again, this time clear and strong, if still quiet and initially difficult for the translator to digest.
”We thank you for your swift arrival and this much-needed sustenance. Our own reserves were drained in the process of creating that which you still seek.”
“The recovery?” asked the smaller spindly creature. “Are you saying that we're here to recover some food reserves?” His tone was slightly disappointed, as the creature had been imagining all manner of unexplainable riches or mysterious artifacts, but he did his best to avoid sounding too dejected.
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”No, it is likely not suitable as food any longer; It is difficult to explain, but might be easier if you saw for yourselves.”
Some of the creatures swarmed over the softly-glowing lock, and as a few of them disappeared into the recess of the mechanism, a few seconds later the light pinged to vibrant green, and with a clink and a hiss slid open.
Within was a room lined with gardening supplies: small hand tools, gloves, stacked bags of potting soil, and a few hoppers full of mixed seeds. But what dominated the room was the structure at the center of it. It was large, coming more than halfway up the larger salvager’s torso, and almost seemed to glow from within as the soft tan-white material caught the light of the few intact lights in the room. The structure was a hexagonal column in shape, capped off with a slowly-mounded dome, and at every angle it was covered with a very fine and precise texture of minute hexagons, the grid echoing the larger shape before them.
But within, both aliens could see a form suspended in the center of the shape, something dark against the otherwise transparent-yellow contents. The two salvagers also felt and heard a hush fall over the swarm around them, as if this was a place of sanctity.
Heedful of that change of tone, the smaller of the pair calmed himself and said carefully “Will we be allowed to look inside? I think we need to know what we are recovering to make sure we move it safely and properly.”
The hum of the swarm picked back up, as if a great discussion of many thousands of voices was being had in a form of language they had no hope of understanding. But at the end of it the echoing voice replied in unison.
“That is acceptable. Do not disturb the contents within, but we will reseal the container after you have opened it. The wax along the top can be easily parted with a hot implement such as the one you carry.”
Nodding, the spider-like alien clambered forward, pulling out his cutting torch again but this time adjusting the flame width to be as thin as possible. Carefully he melted through the seal, a warm and rich sweet aroma wafting out and causing his companion to hum in appreciation. He leaned the hexagonal wax lid backwards, and within the amber liquid inside he could see the curled form of a human, wispy hair around their head and wrinkles clear along their exposed skin where the draped garments did not cover. They did not appear to have any kind of breathing, nor did they move or stir, and the salvager realized his suspicions earlier had been correct.
“So how long has this one been dead then?”
The high of hummed and the buzzing voice had a mournful tone.
”The caretaker departed this world for the Garden of infinite Flowers nearly a hundred solar cycles ago.”
The alien’s eyes winded shock as it looked back to the human, who looked as if they could awaken any moment. Even aboard a clean, space-going vessel, there should have still been enough microorganisms both within the ship and within the deceased as well to have consumed them with rot and reduce them to inorganic support structures within a few solar cycles at most.
His companion had lumbered up to look inside the hexagonal interment, and voiced the same thought aloud. “How has he been so vividly preserved?” she asked, “This does not smell like a volatile embalming mix.”
”No indeed. This is our nectar, the gift that we give to the humans in exchange for their aid and, once upon a time, their protection and guidance. We had just departed the Sol system, and the caretaker had spent nearly three solar cycles catching up and learning of what had become of his friends and family over the centuries he had been gone. But as we crossed into open space, we were struck by a solar pulse, ejected from a star so far away it could not be seen with the naked eye. It overloaded our systems, causing electronics to crash and his stasis pod to unseal.
”He did his best to help us repair the damage, send out distress call after distress call in every direction, as we'd so thoroughly lost our bearings and no navigational systems had survived the initial surge. We did our best to conserve resources; indeed, we had enough food and supplies that we would be able to weather ages adrift. But the human is solitary, not one of many in a cycle of birth and death, and he was aged for his species. Despite all of our care and attention, he passed. Before he crossed over into the Garden, he spoke of his lone regret, which was the hope to be buried with his family, descendants, and kin in a graveyard on Earth. Although he did not ask of us, we constructed this vessel to contain him and preserve him, so that his final wishes could be fulfilled.”
“And you just had all of this preservation fluid lying around?” asked the salvager, before being shushed for the interruption by his companion.
The swarm of creatures appeared to be amused by the question. ”No, for this is actually something we produce. A refined nutrient mix, suitable for preservation of sustenance, or anything else for that matter. We donated a large swath of our reserves to this vessel, to offer our caretaker a gentle repose while we waited for aid to arrive. It reduced the number of cycles we would be able to weather in half, and we are fortunate you arrived when you did, for we would have only survived a scant few additional cycles, and even then not without massive losses towards what was left of our people.”
The two salvagers nodded and the smaller carefully pushed the wax lid back into place. Immediately swarms of bees began resealing the container, and a few minutes later they were able to carefully slide it onto a anti-grav cart platform, the larger alien carefully pulling it behind her as she navigated her ways through the cramped and damaged ship, and back to the salvage crew’s own vessel.
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“Do you require any special accommodations before we depart? The human delegates had warned us of your sensitivity to hyper speed, so my companion and I have prepared stasis pods of our own for the journey to the nearest port of call.”
The swarm had all followed them through, but a cluster landed in front of them, at the airlock back to the damaged ship they had abandoned.
”No, you have shown us the additional food reserves we will require, and we are already making progress to set up temporary quarters within the spaces of your ship, as well as performing minor repairs here and there where needed.”
The two salvage members were surprised at how quickly the bees had taken to their ship, but were pleased to see a notable increase in engine core efficiency and a decrease in minor errors cropping up across their flight command console. Already there were large and looming white wax combs seeming to grow from the walls and ceiling near the corners of each of the rooms as the swarm settled in.
The cluster at the airlock seemed to almost watch as the door sealed shut and their former home drifted back empty into the void.
“I am sorry about your ship,” the smaller alien offered, understanding how he might feel if he were suddenly forced to take refuge on someone else's vessel and leave his familiar one behind. However, the swarm seemed determined and upbeat as it replied.
”Our kind is no stranger to relocation and adaptation.”
As they spoke, the two aliens could see at the center of the cluster of nearest cluster of bees was one with a speck of brilliantly-colored iridescent paint, on an abdomen notably longer than the bees around them. The cluster of these bees flew over to perch atop the wax container with the preserved human within, and indeed this quickly seemed to be the spot that most of them began gathering at. Any bees not actively building combs within walls or performing repairs seem to cluster and swarm around it. Soon they had hidden any trace of the pale container beneath a mass of rippling and shifting minute bodies.
”Our kind has known since time immemorial that a home is not where you are, but who you surround yourself with.”